A Decade After the FDA Warned Doctors About Methadone, States Finally Stopped Recommending It
When used as a pain reliever, methadone is especially likely to cause unintentional overdoses.
Methadone
Five Studies: Understanding America's Opioid Crisis
After 20 years of skyrocketing addiction rates, how can the United States get its pill problem under control?
A Case for Methadone in Our Jails
Methadone could have saved David Stojcevski, who died on the floor of his jail cell last year.
When Addicts Get Out of Jail
New research suggests that maintaining methadone treatment in jails and prisons would save lives.
How America Overdosed on Drug Courts
Hailed as the most compassionate way for the criminal justice system to deal with addicts, drug courts were designed to balance punishment with rehabilitation. But after 25 years, the verdict is in: Drug courts embolden judges to practice medicine without a license—and they put lives in danger.
American Judges Are Playing Doctor—and Doing Harm
An early look at a Pacific Standard story that's currently only available to subscribers.
Here's What's Wrong With How U.S. Doctors Respond to Painkiller Misuse
Too often, Americans with painful medical conditions who misuse pain pills like Oxycontin are denied further treatment and even prosecuted. There are more effective, enlightened responses—as the U.K. has shown for decades.
The Drug Lord With a Social Mission
Matt Bowden (sometimes known as Starboy, an "interdimensional traveler") helped create one of the most viral outbreaks of new drugs in history. He might also have the antidote.
Never Before Has Our Approach to Drugs Improved So Much, So Fast
We're winning: More progress has been made toward enlightened drug policies and treatment in the past five years than in the previous 25. Here's an advocacy agenda to take us even closer to the future we need.
The Dangers of Criminalizing Pregnancy Outcomes
New legislation in Tennessee has implications much wider than the use of illegal drugs by pregnant mothers-to-be.
Kicking Methadone With Johnny Winter
How sleight-of-hand—and obsessive-compulsive disorder—helped the guitarist shake 30 years of addiction.
Pharma's Fraught Quest for Addiction Medication Pay Dirt
Examining the medical, moral, and monetary decisions that Alkermes made to bring its drug Vivitrol to market—including a controversial trial in Russia. Are the critics right to cry foul?